


Those Quiet Moments

by HarkaSun



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman Friendship, Dancing, Drabble, Drunken Shenanigans, F/F, Forgiveness, Found Family, Immortals are kind and soft, Italian with translations in end notes, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Acting Like a Married Couple, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, One Big Happy Family, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon, Slow Dancing, Team as Family, They deserve some peace goddamnit, They deserve some quiet time okay, Three Years Later, i don't make the rules, to establish myself as forgiving booker and shipping the gays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkaSun/pseuds/HarkaSun
Summary: With the team all back together and just about beginning to cope again, Joe decides that they need an evening together as a family. Between missions, the team find these rare moments of joy and softness where they can rediscover their familiarity.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74





	Those Quiet Moments

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something for this film because I'm obsessed right now. Took me barely twenty minutes, so this is very short. I might do a longer one at some point if anyone vibes with this, but, for now, this felt like a good place to start (and a way to practice my short writing and my Italian).
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

When their family is complete again, it admittedly takes time for them all to adjust.

Booker is subdued and sullen for years, feeling that his shortened punishment means that he was forgiven too easily. Even Joe doesn’t have the heart to be angry with him. Andy is wracked with guilt and grief at Quynh’s appearance, barely able to even look her in the eye for the first few months. Nicky and Nile are honorary parents until everyone can pick themselves back up, always a shoulder to lean on or lending an ear to listen.

Just about three and a half years after they all found one another again, Nicky returns to their camp—just some hastily rolled out sleeping mats in a half-collapsed barn—to find Joe knelt on the floor, Booker curled up in his lap and sobbing over an explanation. Joe is shaking his head and mumbling something too quiet to hear, but he catches Nicky’s eye over Booker’s head, gives him a sad little smile.

That night feels almost normal. Joe gets them all together, determined that they will be a family for this one night. He buys a copious amount of alcohol and baklava and sets up some half-beaten stereo to blast a very old mixtape that he picked up in some second-hand store years ago now.

The barn is filled with light and laughter and everything seems to fall into place. They drink too much and speak mainly in Italian and panic when Andy gets drunk—actually _drunk_ —for the first time in an undetermined number of centuries, her failing immortality affecting her tolerance.

Quynh takes her arm and leads her up to bed when she starts babbling excitedly in a language so ancient that neither of them could even give its name anymore. Andy kisses her messily at the curve of her jaw at the foot of the ladder to the barn’s loft, mumbling something form those ancient words that makes Quynh narrow her eyes and utter a soft reply; the same words echoed back to the now mortal Andromache.

Truth be told, she is likely glad to be away and to have Andy to herself for a little. After all those centuries alone beneath the ocean, the raucousness of the group still overwhelms her sometimes. The quiet moments are ones to be treasured just as much as the louder ones. Quynh and Andy have a lot of quiet moments.

Without Andy to entertain them, Booker—who is too bordering on heavy drunkenness—teaches Nile how to dance like they did in the seventeen hundreds. In turn, Nile teaches him a few more modern moves so he won’t embarrass himself should they have to infiltrate a nightclub or something. From what she deems to teach, he will likely _still_ embarrass himself.

Joe laughs at him and Booker grins and Nicky’s heart is so full. There has been an unspoken heaviness upon their team for too long now. Quynh needed to adjust to being around other people again, as well as the new discoveries of the modern age. Booker and Andy had to shed their guilt. Nile missed her family. Joe struggled with keeping his faith after Booker’s betrayal and Andy’s failed immortality. Sometimes, Nicky had felt like he was trying to hold the whole team together by himself. It was too much for one man.

Now, Nicky can see that playfulness back in his lover’s eyes and, when Joe smiles, he looks like he really means it.

He goes as far as pulling Nicky to his feet, holding him close on one of the slower songs. They dance together with an unprecedented amount of grace for two men who have forgotten more ways to kill than most people learn in a lifetime. Joe mumbles low and sultry in his ear and Nicky hides his smile by turning his face against his immortal lover’s neck.

Nile is practically fluent in Italian at this point and she certainly understands enough to flush and make a hasty exit. Booker kisses them both sloppily—aiming for their cheeks but getting Nicky on the jaw and Joe on his closed eyelid—before he follows the others up to their hastily arranged sleeping quarters in the loft of the barn.

Nicky and Joe stay a while longer. They turn the music down slightly so the others might rest in peace, but they keep dancing. Nicky treasures these moments with Joe as Quynh does with Andy; these times of softness and quiet. It is so rare now that he gets Joe to himself.

“Sei bellissimo,” Joe mumbles, kisses the corner of Nicky’s mouth. He’s a little drunk himself, but it makes Nicky smile. “Bellissimo…”

“Shh,” Nicky hushes, kisses him chidingly but properly. He can’t help it. He loves to see the light back in Joe’s eyes. “You don’t have to say that, amore.”

Shaking his head, Joe pushes a slow hand through Nicky’s hair. “But it’s true.” He runs the pad of his thumb over Nicky’s lips, around the curve of his mouth. “So beautiful… La mia vita, la mia anima, amore mio…”

“Yours,” Nicky murmurs, cupping Joe’s face in his hands as he makes his vow. “I’m yours, cuore mio. Now and always.”

Joe smiles and rests the side of his head against Nicky's own. His grip is soft and steady and Nicky can feel the strength behind his hands, but Joe doesn't need to use it. Swaying there in time to the music, wrapped in Joe's arms, Nicky knows that they're going to be okay. They are family now, their little team. Whatever happens, they will face it together.

As long as they are together—Nicky knows in his heart—they can overcome anything this world throws at them.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Sei bellissimo – You’re beautiful  
> Bellissimo – (Very) beautiful  
> Amore - Love  
> La mia vita - My life  
> La mia anima - My soul  
> Amore mio - My love  
> Cuore mio - My heart
> 
> (I also put this on my Tumblr [HERE](https://harkasun.tumblr.com/post/630042095891234816/those-quiet-moments))


End file.
